Fantasy Football

Fantasy Football 2013 Season Awards

The NFL regular season is over and that means the fantasy football season has commenced as well. I hope all of you did well in your leagues, and daily fantasy games if you chose to partake in those. If you’re wondering how I did in mine, you may not be but I’m going to tell you anyway. I finished 1st and 3rd in my two leagues (yes I know only two leagues, I like to keep it light). Surprisingly enough I finished 1st in the league that I had to win the final four games of the regular season to even make the playoffs, and 3rd in the league I was the regular season champion. I’m not telling you this to brag about how I did, OK I sorta am, but instead to tell you never give up on the season. I had to work hard to get that team into the playoffs, but anything is possible once you get there. So even if you start the season 1-4, keep reading the articles here, and other sites, to get help to improve your team and you never know what can happen.

The 2013 NFL season was a great one. We saw a record number of points scored with 11,985, which is an average of 23.4 per team. That average beat the previous record that was set in 1948. This led to a very exciting and high scoring fantasy season too, which is just fun for everybody.
We actually saw a tie too. That was between Green Bay and Minnesota on November 24th. That tie actually kept Green Bay in the hunt for the division, thanks to the rest of the NFC North blowing it, and eventually they got Aaron Rodgers back in Week 17 and won it. Big surprise teams this year were: The Texans for being the worst team, finishing a terrible 2-14 after starting 2-0, the Redskins being as bad as they were after making the playoffs last season, the Chiefs starting the season 10-0 and the Lions finishing the year 1-6 after having the division title just about locked up.

The NFL will be handing out their awards just after the Super Bowl, but since in fantasy football we have already had our Super Bowl, here at Fantasy Six Pack we will be handing out our position MVPs and I will be giving out the rest of the awards for fantasy football. There isn’t much surprise here for the position MVPs, but let’s get started anyway.

Quarterback MVP

Author

Joe Bond

Keenan Keeling

Adam Case

Player

Peyton Manning

Peyton Manning

Peyton Manning

This really shouldn’t be a surprise. Peyton Manning will likely take home the NFL MVP after setting the season passing touchdown record with 55, and the season passing yards record with 5,477. He also tied Dan Marino for most 400 yard passing games, and might have beaten it if the Broncos didn’t take him out of the last game.

For fantasy, he was easily the top scorer in standard leagues (non-PPR and 4 point for passing touchdowns) with 406 points. Drew Brees was second with 348, then next after that was Jamaal Charles with 295. Not only was he the leading scorer by a mile, he was the third QB drafted on average, after Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees. I even saw him go after Cam Newton in plenty of leagues. The owner who had him in your league, likely did very well.

Blake Allen, a follower on Facebook, chimed in and said “Breesus Christ … aka Drew Brees”. Very good selection indeed. As I mentioned before he finished 2nd in total points on the year, a good 50 points ahead of Charles.

Running Back MVP

Author

Joe Bond

Keenan Keeling

Adam Case

Player

Jamaal Charles

Jamaal Charles

Jamaal Charles

Jamaal Charles was unanimous selection of the MVP here finishing as the top fantasy running back with 295 total points in standard leagues. Even with him sitting out Week 17 he still was 33 points ahead of the second running back, LeSean McCoy. His Week 15 performance, most teams semi-finals, sealed this contest with his ridiculous 51 point, 5 touchdowns, performance. Adam says it is Jamal Charles because “with his new system he became the number one back in fantasy and an absolute monster in PPR”. Keenan said “Another no-brainer selection (referring to the Peyton pick for QB) as Charles carried most teams to a title this season. He only failed to score in double digits 1 week (PPR leagues), and single-handily won fantasy semifinals with five touchdowns against Oakland. Honorable mentions would be Shady McCoy and Matt Forte.”

Wide Receiver MVP

Author

Joe Bond

Keenan Keeling

Adam Case

Player

Josh Gordon

Josh Gordon

Josh Gordon

I actually thought there was going to be a bit of a split here between Josh Gordon and Calvin Johnson, maybe even a Demaryius Thomas vote too, but we all went with Gordon here.

Adam sums it up nicely by saying “Missed two games. Two games! Number one WR in fantasy this year with a couple monster performances.” However, Keenan says everything I was thinking “Calvin Johnson and Demaryius Thomas will be popular choices for MVP, but for me it’s Gordon. Gordon was a mid-round pickup who, after his suspension, was as consistent as those two guys without the injuries or high price tag. In Weeks 11 through 14, Gordon racked up 774 yards and 5 touchdowns…unheard of! He led the league in receiving yards while missing two games AND playing for the Cleveland Browns.” Enough said here I think.

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Tight End MVP

Author

Joe Bond

Keenan Keeling

Adam Case

Player

Jimmy Graham

Jimmy Graham

Jimmy Graham

Yeah I suppose this one is a no-brainer as well. Jimmy Graham even was by far the best tight end this season. He held WR1 value all year long, and would have finished as the 4th wide receiver in non-PPR leagues. If Julius Thomas could have been more consistent this season, and not gotten injured for a couple of weeks, then he might have had a chance, but no dice. Here’s what the rest of the staff had to say.

Adam: “Was hurt for a long period and still finished nearly 60 points above the 2nd place TE”

Value Pick of the YearKnowshon Moreno was the 46th running back drafted, and in some leagues not drafted at all and finished as the 5th best running back in standard leagues, 4th best in PPR. In a season where there were a lot of running backs that failed to live up to expectations, Moreno helped those owners who were fortunate enough to draft him and unfortunate enough to draft one of the busts, overcome the loss of those early round pick. I may be a bit biased since I drafted him in the last round in one of my leagues, but you can’t deny the value here. Another notable choice is be Pierre Thomas.

Bust of the Year
There are a lot of options this year, most of them being running backs. Before I go forward, I want to mention I don’t consider injured players for this award (can I call it that?). I don’t think it’s fair to call hem busts, but if you played most games and did not perform up to your average draft pick, then you are fair game.

Some of the players I considered for this are C.J. Spiller, Trent Richardson and Matt Ryan. Ultimately though the award is going to Ray Rice. He gets to wear this crown this season, after being the 7th picked running back selected on average because he was a “safe” pick. You can’t blame owners for thinking this. He has been a top 10 RB the last four years; 6th (2012), 1st (2011), 10th (2010), 4th (2009). This season he sank like a rock all the way to 30th, scoring only 107 points in standard leagues. Even in PPR leagues where he should excel he was only able to climb to 24th.

Waiver Wire/Free Agent Gem
This one was pretty easy in my opinion. Zac Stacy was surprisingly named the starter before Week 5 and never looked back. In fact he out performed the opening day starter Daryl Richardson so much that even when he was healthy, Richardson never saw a carry from Week 9 on. To get back to Stacy, from when he started seeing meaningful carries, Week 5 on, he was the 7th best running back in fantasy. He also seemed to be matchup proof. I say this because he did fairly well against Seattle (twice), and was one of only four running backs to score on the Cardinals all season. If you snagged him off your wavier wire, you were rewarded nicely.

Rookie of the year
There were a couple of rookies that came to mind this year and none of them were quarterbacks, which is surprising considering the last couple of years we’ve had Cam Newton, RGIII and Andrew Luck take off with this category. This year we had standouts Le’Veon Bell and Keenan Allen, Allen could have been a WW/FA gem too. Bell was great when he came back from his injury in Week 4, averaging 13.1 points a week, being the 7th best RB during that time. Allen didn’t really get going til the same week and he averaged 11.4 points, 12th during that span.

Despite how good those two were, Eddie Lacy was better. He ultimately finished as the 6th best RB in standard leagues. To compare him with Bell and Allen from Week 4 – 17, Lacy averaged 15.1 points, 5th best. He was a workhorse for the Packers, especially when Aaron Rodgers got hurt, and did the same for fantasy teams.

Comeback Player of the Year
The last award I want to hand out goes to the player who had such a bad 2012 season, possibly more, that fantasy owners were ready to give up on them. Really only drafted to be depth and ready to be dropped at a moments notice. Ryan Mathews easily comes to mind, DeSean Jackson as well. They are really only on this list because they were injured the year before or in Mathews case, a constant injury risk throughout his career. To be fair I didn’t want any part of either of them for that exact reason. Removing injury from the equation Philip Rivers won this for me. He had a horrible 2012, finishing as the 21st ranked QB. He only had three games of 20+ fantasy points, but beat that with single digit fantasy point games with five. This season he turned it around by becoming the 6th ranked QB and matched his 20+ fantasy point games from 2012 in the first four weeks. He only had one single digit game this season, proof that he improved his consistency, which is a huge reason he had a much better season.

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In closing, I want to say thank you from all of us here at Fantasy Six Pack for reading this season. We hope we kept you informed, entertained, and led you to a championship or two. We discuss Basketball, Baseball and Hockey too. So if you are involved in any of those fantasy games keep reading us.

You can follow me on Twitter @fantasysixpack for more news and to ask me any questions about your team. Also be sure to like us on Facebook, and Google+ for more updates from Fantasy Six Pack.

About Joe Bond

Not just another "Average Joe" when it comes to Fantasy Sports, he is the fantasy brain trust behind the FantasySixPack.net website. Joe is one of the Experts included in the FantasyPros Consensus Rankings for Football, Baseball and Basketball and finished well each year. You can find him on Twitter, @F6P_Joe, where he is waiting by the keyboard for your question.